Project Update: February, 2002

Project Think and Link enjoyed a fast and furious start up last October. Our collaborative team met weekly to plan our research activities. The research team includes members from the fields of computer science, cognitive rehabilitation, education, and qualitative research methodology. Research activities centered around the following areas

• design and activation of a project Web site
• hiring of personnel such as programmers, and data support
• refinement of initial email software based on pilot study and continued literature
• development of a computer user profile to document user variables ( Now ONLINE! )

In January we held our first focus group with 16 individuals who have brain injuries. They completed our Computer User Profile and offered their insights about people with cognitive impairment using computers and email. We are in the process of transcribing their thoughts and ideas which will be part of a data base guiding the development of our email assistive technology. Our secondfocus group, conducted in February, brought together the primary caregivers of people with brain injury. Their insights about computer use and support needs and the potential strengths and barriers for using email when a person has cognitive limitations has been extremely valuable and will also be entered into our data base.

On the software development side, two major efforts were started. The first was the construction of an online version of the Computer User Profile we administer at the focus groups. It is also available through the SURVIVOR link off of the project home page. The second effort is the development of the email client software for trial in late winter. This is moving quickly. The client software is ready; the remote monitoring software (for examining research participants’ email usage) is taking shape. A simplified user interface has been tested that removes the normal operating system from view, replacing it with a think-and-link interface. We are looking for software developers who might want to participate in the project. See more about this off the Developers link.

We will continue to collect Computer User Profile data through both our ongoing focus groups as well as over the Internet. We will continue to conduct focus groups over the coming months and begin to analyze trends in responses. This information will be fed to our computer programmers and incorporated into our email software. Other efforts will be to recruit subjects for our longitudinal study of email use in the home and the design and gathering of measurement tools to capture variables important to email use. Stay tuned!